Well before the United States became an active participant in World War II the industrial might of the country was gearing itself for greater production of war materiel. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in one of his fireside chats in December 1940, declared that the United States “must become the arsenal of democracy.” By the middle of 1942 the output of ammunition far exceeded any earlier rate; monthly production of artillery ammunition had tripled since the end of 1941. Production lines delivered well over 32 million rounds of artillery ammunition to the Army in the first six months of 1942 alone.